Musical Tacos
Blonde ambition, grand openings and a "will winter ever end" investigation.
🙁 Will Winter Ever End?
We had a nice day last week. People started romping on the waterfront in 50-degree temperatures and then — WHAMMO — it got cold again. The kind of chill that makes you binge Netflix and carbs before giving up all hope of anything and everything. So yeah, people want to know: will winter ever end?
We decided to delve into the issue, and found out that daylight savings time starts on March 9th, which might perk us up a bit. And then spring is scheduled to arrive March 20th. So even though it doesn’t seem like it will ever end, the smart money is on the fact that it will, in fact, end. In T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land,” he wrote that “April is the cruelest month,” but clearly the man never owned a dog asking to go out at 11pm when it’s 19 degrees. For us here at the Gazette, April can’t come soon enough. Until then, here’s some local news you can use, or not. Choice is yours.
🌮 Taco Joint Of Our Dreams Opens
This week, Park Avenue in Weehawken officially welcomed a brand new spot for tacos, quesadillas and more with Urban Taqueria, which had its grand opening Sunday March 2nd, complete with ribbon-cutting by local officials and free-flowing horchata. This first-of-its-kind spot is a family-run business spearheaded by Paloma and Ricardo Arias, who bring 30 years of restaurant experience and deep ties to the neighborhood. Ricardo grew up here, and they both moved back to Weehawken with their growing family 15 years ago, which is when we met them. The prices are super reasonable (see menu below), the ingredients fresh, and the service friendly — you might even see their kids behind the counter. We’ll drop some pictures before moving on, but the recommendation is you just show up and support — because your support will also benefit your taste buds. You can follow them on IG at urbantaquerianj.
🎭 Broadway Musical $5? Race Ya There!
Never work with kids or animals? Well this musical includes both and is set to run FOREVER. But “forever” means for 3 days only, so you better get your tickets now.
As seen above, Weehawken High School is presenting Legally Blonde, The Musical which runs March 14 & 15 at 7P with a special “sensory-friendly” performance on Sunday March 16 at 1P. And yes, tickets are only $5. Last year’s production of Mamma Mia broke attendance records and now they’re hoping the community will once again show up in droves for this production.
We spoke with Bernard J. Solomon, a theater professional turned educator who runs 6 classes per day at the high school while also serving as the musical’s producer, choreographer, set designer, prop master and de facto tech director. Some things we learned, besides the fact that he’s very busy:
The kids have been hauling wood, painting, and building the set. The set might rival the Barbie movie in terms of amount of pink paint — Mr. Solomon confirmed there are “four or five different shades of pink” being used.
Student musicians are in the pit orchestra, along with professionals, and for the 2nd year in a row they have a student conductor.
There’s a student calling all the cues in the booth, and students on the sound board. And of course all the actors are young humans except two… because yes, there’s not one, but TWO real dogs on stage. They are local pooches who answered the casting call and not professionals.
And finally, the choreography you’ll see was officially licensed from the Tony-award winning choreographer/director Jerry Mitchell, and there’s a challenging dance number with jump ropes. Of this number Mr. Solomon said, “I've been with the kids as they struggle and feel like they can't do it and continuing to work with them on it and then seeing them get it — and sharing in that excitement and that joy with them as they get it — it makes it all worth it at the end.”
So, what are you waiting for? Jump to get your tickets here: weehawkenhstheater.org
🚲 Roll On Up To This Meeting 3/5
Hey! Are you a forward-thinking person into biking and/or walking round town and not dying? If so there’s a Weebiken winter meeting on Wednesday March 5th at 6:30P. Or if you had heard, note that originally the meeting location was the library, but it was recently changed and will be happening at The Burger Temple on Park Avenue. On their agenda: ride ideas for 2025, cycling and pedestrian safety, and more. And if you didn’t know, Weebiken describes themselves as “Weehawken's independent, bicycle advocacy organization promoting a safer cycling community.” You can also follow Weebiken on Instagram.
🎯 Game Night For Adults 3/7
The Weehawken Elks are trying hard to get people 21+ out of their homes, and into the lost art of interacting with other humans. This Friday, March 7th is another opportunity, and it’s billed as a game night. Come for board games, pool, darts. There’s a cash bar — they don’t take plastic or Venmo — with wicked cheap drinks. You can even BYO snacks. It’s all happening at 2 50th street in the downstairs pub. Parking available but to state the blindingly obvious, don’t drink and drive.
Seagulls Stage Tower Plaza Takeover
Once upon a time about 15 years ago we had way too many pigeons at Tower Plaza. So many, in fact, that Tower Plaza played raptor calls over a loudspeaker to try and dissuade them. Anyway, the raptor recordings didn’t work, other than to annoy the nearby neighbors who asked them to please turn off the screeching faux birds. The Hudson Reporter even wrote an article about these piped-in peckers, called “Angry Birds.” But now Hudson Reporter is no longer a real newspaper, and their archive is offline, so we can’t link to it and you just need to believe us.
But now? The good news is that the pigeons are gone. The bad news? Well it’s not bad news, unless you’re a pigeon, but seems seagulls have moved in.
If you ask us, seagulls are better than pigeons, but you didn’t ask us. They’re a little bit classier, even though, if we’re being honest, we know a seagull would peck our eyes out for a chance at a stray French fry. But it’s nice to close our eyes and imagine we are on Nantucket every time we hit Planet Fitness or run to Lidl on a desperate egg hunt.
Cue: Wrap Music
This newsletter is free to read and subscribe to, but we’re all for freebies and/or money too, which we will always disclose. For this issue, we got free tacos — yay! — but so did many neighbors and friends who were invited to sample them. Beta testing tacos is awesome.
Anyway, we love hearing your ideas.
To reach us with tips: tips@bignoyes.com
Just note that if you have an event or idea, send us ALL the info. Date, time, address, cost, etc.
If you want our sponsor rate sheet or want to discuss sponsored content ideas? Email: advertising@bignoyes.com
If snail mail is your thing, just write to:
Susie Felber
Weehawken Gazette
P.O. Box 3006
Weehawken, NJ 07086
Another mode of contact is to send a DM on Instagram to: instagram.com/weehawkengazette — you can also comment here, but you know, be nice. Oh and we currently have way more subscribers than IG followers, and we’re glad for that too.
Tah for now nice nabes!
Susie
PS Subscribers get this newsletter first AND they can laugh at exclusive typos that are later corrected in the archive version.